Fórum

For the fifth consecutive year, the São Paulo International Film Festival partners with Itaú Cultural to organize Fórum Mostra, a space dedicated to discussions on the political, economic and creative aspects of cinema.

In 2021, Fórum will still take place virtually, given restrictions imposed by the pandemic, and be broadcast on Mostra’s YouTube channel on the 27th, 28th and 29th, with two daily panel discussions: at 11am and 3pm.

The first day will focus on the impacts the pandemic has had on the audiovisual industry, in terms of both language and business. While the opening panel, Novas Telas, Novas Regras (New Screens, New Rules), addresses the streaming revolution, including regulatory issues pertaining to the industry, the second one, Ainda É Tudo Cinema? (Is It Still All Cinema?), will explore changes caused by the pandemic in cinematographic language.

Novelties promoted by the online and an inclination towards hybrid languages — phenomena the pandemic hasn’t created, but given a boost to — will be addressed during Fórum’s second day. For panel A Realidade Animada (The Animated Reality), directors of My Uncle José, Bob Spit – We Do Not Like People and Archipelago, three animations selected for the 45th Mostra, will discuss the reasons why animation has proven to be such an attractive resource for artists who wish to address themes with a political background or potential for critique.

Still within hybridism, Fórum opens its doors to other cultural manifestations in an attempt to understand how in-person and online spaces should, or should not, coexist in the coming years.

Based on the experiences of certain events and institutions, O Online Veio para Ficar? (Has Online Come to Stay?) deals with challenges and possibilities the pandemic has brought to the relationship between culture and audience, and the extent to which the nature of certain cultural manifestations may have been altered forever — with a tendency, in many cases, to incorporate audiovisual language.

Fórum’s last day will be dedicated to political aspects of culture. Panel Política Audiovisual: Impasses e Saídas (Audiovisual Politics: Dead Ends and Ways Out) will welcome guests in charge of industry politics at municipal, state and federal levels to reflect on the future of the relationship between cinema and the State, which has been affected by the crisis in public finances and market reconfigurations.

The theme of culture and the State extends to Fórum`s closing panel, Cultura, Estado e Burocracia (Culture, the State and Bureaucracy), which will attempt to look at the serious predicaments affecting the industry, not only in order to diagnose them, but to understand what lessons, given the current crisis, can be useful going forward.

Also in line with this edition, Fórum bets on the relationship between literature and cinema, welcoming once again to its program Da Palavra à Imagem (From Word to Image), an online pitching of books that will take place on November 1st and put book publishers and film producers face to face.